Today I was channel surfing and stumbled across EWTN and a rerun of that elderly nun Mother Angelica. She is the spittin-image of my 8th grade teacher, Sister Eugenie, of whom I think fondly. It was a repeat of a January 15, 1994 Mother Angelica Live program with a focus on the "Eucharist." Mother was lamenting the Roman Catholic Church liberals who were no longer putting the doctrine of transubstantiation front and center. Callers also voiced their shock that priests in some Catholic churches were allowing people to stand instead of kneel as the elements were being changed into "the body, blood, soul, and divinity" of Jesus. Mother responded that the host is Jesus himself and is to be adored, not merely venerated.

The Bible instructs us to be kind to strangers because we could be entertaining angels unawares. But the flip side to that is that we could be entertaining fallen angels unawares. Nowhere in church history is that more evident than in the Roman Catholic Church.

Beneath this article there will be a radio commentary that Roger Oakland recently prepared on the subject of the ecumenical unity that Bishop Hanson (Head of Evangelical Lutheran Association of America) is proposing by 2017 - 500th anniversary of Lutheran Reformation.

Pope Urges Better Dialogue With Lutherans

By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press Writer

Pope Benedict XVI said Monday that ecumenical talks with Lutherans had run into new challenges and called for greater efforts at dialogue in the years before the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation.

Many Roman Catholic traditions find their origin in paganism, but none as obvious as the use of statues, icons, relics, and images in worship. Historians report that statues of the Egyptian goddess Isis, with her child Horus, were renamed Mary and Jesus by pagan Rome. Today, shrines of the Black Madonna and Child are the holiest shrines in Catholic Europe. It should not surprise us that some of the titles and honor given to Mary by the Vatican such as: "Our Lady", "Eternal Virgin" and "Madonna", were the same titles attributed to Isis. Whether the idolatry is pagan or religious, the principle is the same. The worship and honor that is due to God alone is turned away from Him, and given to that which is not God.

Pope Benedict XVI expressed his hope that "all people who believe in the one God will unite to deplore all forms of violence and cooperate to restore peace in the troubled land of Iraq,"  as he presented his condolences following the deaths of hundreds of people during a stampede on a Baghdad bridge.

Benedict's secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, sent a telegram to the Vatican's envoy in Baghdad urging him to pass on the pope's "sincere condolence" to civil and religious authorities as well as to the families.At last count, 953 people were killed in Baghdad when a crowd of Iraq Shiite pilgrims, in a religious procession to a nearby mosque for a religious ceremony, stampeded off a bridge, as the rumor spread through the crowd of a possible terrorist attack. Most of the dead are women and children. They either died in the crush or drowned in the Tigris River. In theÃ‚ telegram, the Pope asked Archbishop Fernando Filoni, apostolic nuncio in Iraq, to express his "sincere sorrow"  to government and religious authorities, the victims" families and the entire population.

The Pope entrusted the victims to the divine mercy of God. He assured the people of his prayers so that the country many "finally be restored in a climate of reconciliation and mutual trust." 

Vatican Fires At Israel

The Vatican told Israel on Thursday that it would not take orders from anyone over what it does or does not condemn, as a diplomatic row boiled over into the biggest challenge yet to face to Benedict's 100- day-old papacy.

In an unusually stern statement, the Vatican also rejected claims that Benedict and his predecessor had failed to condemn Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israelis over the years.

Earlier this week, Israel demanded the Vatican explain why Pope Benedict failed to mention a deadly Palestinian attack in a speech voicing sympathy for other nations struck by Islamist suicide bombers. Addressing the faithful last Sunday, Benedict deplored the "Death, destruction and suffering in countries including Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Britain," And asked God to "stay the hands of assassins ... Driven by fanaticism and hate." The Foreign Ministry said it summoned the Vatican ambassador to ask why the sermon had not mentioned a July 12 suicide bombing by the Islamic Jihad that killed five Israelis.

I come from italian parents. My dad was a WW 2 prisoner of war in Kenya. After the war he married andÃ‚ I was born there. Spent my youth in Kenya and then went to South Africa in 1971 . I lived in Cape Town for 26 years and then returned with my wife and two sons to Italy 8 yrs ago to look after my 92 yr old father.

As an Italian, I was baptized as a baby, christened ,( still have the photos of the bishop "imparting the Holy Spirit ").

In the early 70's South Africa was experiencing a mighty revival. Various friends and a work colleague of mine started witnessing to me. Finally, on the 5th of January 1975, the Lord graciously and gloriously saved me at a Gospel service. A few months later He baptized me with the Holy Spirit and I have never looked back !